A Moment In Time
by repmetsyrrah
Summary: A collection of short Sybil/Tom ficlets from my tumblr. Nine: Tom refuses to let his daughter be raised by anyone but her parents. Ten: Tom gives in and wears white tie, though perhaps not for the reasons Robert hoped. Eleven: Tom and Sybil break their own tradition.
1. Chapter 1

This is a collection of mostly unrelated short Sybil/Tom oneshots previously posted on tumblr. Almost all have GIFs or photosets that were originally posted with them which I'll link to on my profile page.

This is set at the picnic in 3x03.

Thanks to babageneush for the beta.

**Fairy Palace**

* * *

"Won't it be a bit cramped?"

It takes all of Tom's will not to ask Mary if she's joking.

The family will be four once they move here and she's concerned about space in a house that looks as if it could encompass an entire block of houses where he grew up?

Did she not have _any_ clue how lucky she is?

He doesn't want to upset Sybil so he doesn't point out her unbelievable ignorance and privilege, but he can't let such an absurd comment pass.

"You do realise that for most people it looks like a-"

He hesitates and a memory flashes through his mind.

_He walks briskly, holding fast to his sister's hand, through the clean streets and past houses they could only dream of living in._

_He shouldn't have stayed to talk to a friend after school, he doesn't like the short route home, it only makes him angry, and the whispers of the well-dressed people who live here are none too friendly as they see the two poor children pass by._

_He means to go straight home, not stopping for anything but halfway down the street there's a tug on his hand and he turns to find Kathy staring up in awe at one of the largest houses._

_"Who do you think lives there?" she asks, her voice a hushed whisper._

_"No one we'll ever know," Tom tells her. "Now, come along."_

_He pulls her hand, all too aware that it wouldn't do to be seen loitering here, but Kathy refuses to move._

_She sighs, still staring at the house. "It's like a fairy palace," she says, turning to him with a bright smile._

_Tom shakes his head. He wants to tell her that it'll just be home to some English bastards who probably throw their unwanted food to the dogs, lest it help feed any Irish mouths._

_But his sister is young and innocent and still believes in fairytales._

_So he simply reminds her Ma'll be waiting for them. Then pulls her hand again and walks her away from a house she'll probably dream about tonight, in the single bedroom she has to share with her whole family._

"- fairy palace."

His sister's words come out of his mouth without thought as he returns to the present. He presses his lips together and gives his sister-in-law a hard look.

_A chance of birth_, he thinks, _that's the only difference between you and that little girl on the street._

But Mary is ignoring him as usual and Tom pushes the past from his mind.

It doesn't do to dwell.


	2. Chapter 2

This ficlet takes place post-S3 in a Sybil lives AU. It was written for a manip made from a S4 promo pic. As usual, there's a link on my profile page. I thought Sybil looked rather frustrated and this happened.

Thanks to babageneush for the beta.

**Picture Perfect**

* * *

"Why are we even doing this?" Tom asked, struggling to hold the squirming two-year old.

"Because your mother wants a family picture with Liam in it," Sybil told him, a tight smile on her face as the baby in her arms started to fuss again.

"Love, just keep still, we only need one nice pic for Grandma okay?"

Saoirse seemed like she couldn't care less what her Irish grandmother wanted, kicking her legs as she sat restlessly on her father's hips.

"Just hold still, dears," Sybil begged both her children, "for Mama?"

Liam opened his mouth and gave a cry, letting his mother know exactly what he thought of that.

"Here, here," Tom murmured, leaning forward and teasing his son's hand gently with a finger.

Sybil gave a relieved sigh as the little boy's fascination with grasping his father's finger quietened him for the moment.

The door opened. "Everything alright?"

Saoirse turned at the sound of her grandfather's voice as Liam leaned unexpectedly forward in his mother's arms, forcing her to hold him tighter.

"Smile!"

The flash went off suddenly, catching all the Bransons uawares.

Sybil blinked several times as she stared hard at the photographer.

"I'm not sure that was quite the moment we wanted preserved forever, thank you," Tom sighed, as his wife turned away and tried to calm Liam who had not liked the flash and was now squalling loudly.

"Maybe you should take a break," Lord Grantham suggested.

Sybil was ready to argue. They could do this; Matthew and Mary had had no trouble with their picture. She didn't want to sit through a dinner of her grandmother's comments about why Sybil's children could not be so well behaved (if she heard the phrase 'Irish blood' used as a negative term once more she might just snap).

Then her husband leaned forward and kissed her check lightly. "Just a small break," he suggested, and Sybil wouldn't have minded the photographer capturing a rare moment of agreement between the two men.

She nodded, holding Liam close and feeling herself calm already as Tom stepped closer and put his arm around both of them.

"Just a small one," she told them, "but we_ will_ get this picture."

"I know, love. We will."


	3. Chapter 3

This was another fic written for a manip I made out of a S4 promo pic with Tom dancing in white tie. Link on my profile page.

As always, beta'd by babageneush.

**Dancing**

* * *

It had been impossible not to notice.

Especially now, watching him as he missed the steps to the dance again and laughed.

"This is harder than I thought."

"And you thought all we did was make calls and change five times a day," Sybil said, smiling back.

Isobel, holding his other hand, just chuckled with them. "It took me a while too," she assured him, "but I'm glad we got you out here."

Tom grinned as they raised their hands and spun again.

Even her father, who ignored him as much as he could, had seen it.

"You seem in a good mood tonight," he had commented, somewhat suspiciously over dinner.

Tom simply shrugged. "Not a crime now, is it?"

Sybil couldn't blame her father for wondering. Tom had gone from silent and closed, to open and laughing overnight. She couldn't blame him though, not when the end was finally in sight.

Not to mention for the first time since the argument had begun, he'd relented and worn white tie for dinner.

It was on loan from Matthew of course, but as far as Lord Grantham was concerned, so long as none of the other guests knew, that was good enough.

Sybil felt conflicted on the matter of the tails. On one hand, the sight of her passionate Irish rebel wearing something so symbolic of the English aristocracy was so out-of-place it was jarring to look at.

On the other… it did fit him so nicely…

She couldn't wait to get him upstairs and out of it.

They had to make their announcement first though.

Her mother would be sad to see her granddaughter move out, having become very attached to the child. But she at least would understand.

It would be her father who would raise the most objections. Not because he wouldn't mind seeing the back of Tom, but because he would not be able to understand how Sybil could want to leave Downton again, not when they had so much here.

"I'll be the perfect son-in-law for one night," Tom had decided the night before, still smiling from the letter he had received that morning. "Then hopefully, he'll be in a better mood when we tell him I'm dragging you into poverty again."

Sybil had frowned as she had finished feeding their daughter. "I wish you wouldn't say that, even as a joke."

"I'm sorry, love. But you know that's how he'll see it."

She hadn't been able to argue with that. To her, Tom finding a job as a journalist in London had been everything she had wanted. To her father, the small one bedroom flat his salary would afford them would look like a slum.

She had put Saoirse down to sleep before joining him in bed, settling into his waiting embrace.

"You don't have to, you know. It doesn't matter what he thinks."

"For one night I can manage," he'd assured her, "if it will make things easier. He won't stop us, but I know you don't like it when we argue."

They'd agreed to wait until after dinner, when the guests had departed and the family was hopefully worn out and in high spirits.

But for now, she smiled as he laughed and enjoyed the dance.


	4. Chapter 4

This tiny ficlet was just written for fun, there is a picset but nothing too fancy. Link on my profile page anyway.

Thanks to babageneush for the beta.

**Poker Face**

* * *

_Don't give anything away._

She couldn't look at him.

How on earth was he keeping his expression so steady?

She couldn't look long though, her next question being how on earth no one else had noticed the heat in his gaze. The way he was looking at her...

More to the point, how on earth had he managed to take his shoe and sock off without using his hands?

Because that was most definitely his bare foot sliding over the top of hers, and up-

"Sybil are you quite alright?"

She blinked, the world suddenly intruding upon their moment.

"Pardon?"

Her mother looked at her seriously.

"You look upset."

_Don't look at him._

"Just thinking."

_Damn him_.

Clearly she needed to work on her poker face.

He sunk a little in his chair, still giving nothing away and Sybil couldn't help a sharp breath as his foot travelled higher, under her dress and almost-

"_Oh_."

"Sybil?"

The foot vanished.

"I'm fine," she assured her mother, hoping desperately her voice was steady.

She rather wished he hadn't stopped.

_Maybe..._

"Tom?" Matthew asked a moment later, frowning as Sybil's husband jumped in his seat. "Is everything alright?"

Tom cleared his throat, not quite meeting the other man's eyes.

"I'm fine."

Sybil smiled, and slipped her foot back into her shoe.


	5. Chapter 5

So I spent ages a few months ago making a GIF manip and after so much effort I decided it was worthy of a ficlet. Link to the manip on my profile page as usual.

Thanks to babageneush for the beta.

**Doctor**

* * *

"What's that?"

Sybil smiled with her husband as their daughter pointed curiously to the pile of bags waiting in the entrance hall.

"I think someone's excited," Tom told her as she came to stand beside them.

"I'm not sure anyone's more excited to be leaving than you," Sybil said with a teasing smile.

Tom had been almost giddy since the news they were moving to London. At first they had feared Sybil would be going alone but fate seemed to have finally decided to smile on them for once and not a week later Tom had received a job offer at a paper not far from the school Sybil would attend.

She didn't think he'd stopped smiling since.

They had enjoyed the safety of Downton and Tom had even started to enjoy the company of some of her family but neither of them belonged here. There would be visits of course, they were still family (if at times, reluctantly). But it would never be home.

"It'll be nice not to constantly be thought of as the former chauffeur," Tom commented, seemingly out of nowhere, until Sybil caught sight of her father walking past outside.

She didn't insult him by denying that. Her sisters and brother-in-law were almost his friends now, but to her father he would never be able to move past where he'd come from.

"I've missed just being Mr. and Mrs. Branson," Sybil said, reminding him they were about to get away from all that.

Tom shifted the small child on his hip and smiled at her. She waited but unusually, he didn't speak.

She frowned.

The smile widened.

_"What?"_

"Don't you mean the _Dr. _and Mr. Branson?"


	6. Chapter 6

This little ficlet was written based on the tiny glimpse of Tom holding Sybbie while Anna plays some sort of fishing game at the bazaar in 4x08. Link to the manip I made on my profile page.

**Game**

* * *

"So how do you play this one then?"

Tom Branson looked up as his wife came to stand beside them.

"We think it's fishing," he told her, looking at the small child on his hip. "Don't we, darlin'?"

Saoirse looked up at her mother. "Duck," she announced, pointing at the water-filled tub in front of them.

"That's right, darlin', duck fishing. Shall we give it a go, then?"

He leaned down to retrieve the wooden poles from where they lay on the ground, careful to keep his daughter balanced.

"Now love, I think we have to hook one like…"

Saoirse watched with rapt attention as her father lowered the thin pole, the hook dangling from a line of string as he tried to put it into a hole on one of the coloured ducks.

"Have you seen Matthew?" Sybil asked, as Tom drew his bottom lip between his teeth, focusing intently on the task at hand. "Mary was looking for him."

"He was in the tea tent last I saw. Why is this so hard?"

Sybil laughed as he huffed, frowning in irritation when he failed again to land anything on his line.

"Da." Saoirse leaned forward and grasped the pole, pulling it from her father's hand.

"Go on then." Tom passed it over. "Maybe you'll have better luck."

Sybil smiled as her daughter waved the pole in the air, not quite understanding how the task was best accomplished but giggling delightedly as she tried to work it out.

"Did I tell you Matthew offered me the agent's position again?"

Saoirse leaned forward over the tub, and Sybil instinctively moved her arm up to steady her, though she knew Tom would never let her fall.

"It'd be more money."

Sybil shifted her attention back to her husband as he spoke, though he kept his gaze on their daughter's attempts to hook a wooden bird.

They had talked many times about the empty position of the estate agent. Matthew was insistent Tom would be perfect for the job, but Tom could never bring himself to take the position, regardless of how secure it would make them.

"Would you ever really be happy doing that?"

Tom sighed, looking up at her.

"I like your family, I do," he began. "But not…"

"Not as the representatives of an oppressive class?"

He laughed, sounding surprised, perhaps not expecting her to have remembered his words from so many years ago.

She'd be more surprised if she forgot.

He nodded.

"Exactly. I don't think I can ever support that system. Even if I like the people… or some of them…" He shook his head, and Sybil followed his gaze to the vast, stone walls of the Abbey.

They had called it home for far too long.

"Duck!"

"Ah! We got one!"

Saoirse clapped happily as Tom took the pole from her, carefully unhooking her prize before setting the little girl down and handing it to her. He held out his arm and Sybil took it, following their daughter to the stall dispensing the prizes.

"Don't take the job," she told him. "I know you don't want to."

"But it's not just myself I've got to think of now is it?"

"No," she agreed. "But nothing would make me unhappier, than to be the cause of your unhappiness."

He stopped and turned, lifting a hand to her cheek and kissing her softly.

"You've done quite a few impossible things, Sybil Branson," he told her, when they separated. "But making me unhappy could never be one of them."


	7. Chapter 7

Found this way back on my tumblr and couldn't find it on here so adding to this collection. Posted n response to a S4 promo pic of Tom and Sybbie out for a walk but looking back at something or, in this case, someone.

Set after S3, Sybil lives (of course). Enjoy!

**Wait**

* * *

"Wait!"

Tom and Saoirse stopped, both turning at the shout to see Sybil running towards them, a hat and jacket hastily pinned on.

"I thought you were staying?"

She shrugged. "I changed my mind."

Tom raised an eyebrow at his daughter who was clutching his hand tightly, still a little unsteady on her feet but determined to stay on the ground the first part of their walk.

Though Tom knew well enough she'd be begging to be picked up soon (not that he minded really).

"That doesn't sound like Mama, does it?" he asked the little girl.

Sybil came to a halt beside them and shook her head. "Blame Mary," she told them, "We were discussing the move and she mentioned how lovely she thought London parks were and it suddenly occurred to me this might be the last time we can take a walk like this. In proper country air, with no one around."

"Not reconsidering moving, are you?"

But her husband's tone was teasing. London was their new start, everything they had wanted and so much more. Sybil had been accepted into a medical school, a feat even she had barely believed possible.

After much thought and argument, her father had agreed to fund her studies, but Tom's new journalism job had meant that they didn't need to ask for anything more than that. And even Tom couldn't be upset at accepting money from the Earl this time, not when it was something that made Sybil so happy.

"What do you say, love?" he asked their daughter seriously, as if it was a terribly important decision. "Can Mama come with us?"

"Ma!" Saoirse grinned and clapped happily, making both her parents smile back.

"Well, I think I'll take that as a yes."

Sybil smiled, raising an eyebrow of her own in his direction. "Is the decision unanimous?"

Tom didn't speaking, simply leaning forward and catching her lips in a kiss.

Sybil smiled.

"I'll take that as a yes."


	8. Chapter 8

Inspired by filming pictures from the S5 Christmas Special. Link to the particular picture for this one on my profile page. Unbetaed.

**Camera**

* * *

"I regret our giving your sister a camera."

"Why?" Sybil asked as she flipped over the picture and inked her pen.

_Tom and Saoirse at the hospital memorial 1925.  
__(Mrs Hughes in back)_

"Well, she never tells anyone when she's using it."

Sybil turned it back over to look again and smiled. "But I much prefer these sort of pictures I think. I'm honestly not sure we'll need portraits again."

Everyone was so formal in portraits. They were pictures of people posing. These pictures were of her family, how Sybil knew them to be, not how a photographer wanted them to look.

Besides, the portrait photographer her father had hired a few months ago hadn't done profiles, they weren't in fashion nowdays. But Sybil was rather glad Edith had managed to capture Tom's.

He had a very handsome profile.

It was still a little surprising, how after over five years of marriage she was still so taken by him. How did he manage to grow more handsome every day?

"Just some warning next time might be nice. Who knows what she might catch you doing?"

"Goodness, what are you doing around Edith that no one else should see?"

Sybil laughed as Tom just smiled and shook his head at her teasing. She checked the ink was dry and added the picture to the small pile Edith had given her than afternoon.

Behind her, Tom muttered a curse as he struggled into his white tie. He still hated dinner at Downton, even after all these years.

Sybil couldn't blame him, as much as she loved her family she never missed their little flat in London so much as when she was here.

"Are you getting changed or do I have to make you excuses on account of a few pictures?"

She forgave his irritability. This stay hadn't been one of the best, and they were both eager to be home, where they could be themselves without the cutting comment and the judgement of her grandmother and father that they'd come to accept might ease, but would most likely never go away.

"It's only tonight," she assured him, getting up and pushing his hands out of the way of his collar. She fixed his bowtie in place and made certain it was straight.

"One more night and we'll be home," she promised.

And sealed it with a kiss.


	9. Chapter 9

This was inspired by an excerpt from an article about the next _Downton Abbey_ book being released:

_It was usually an accepted fact that Nanny was the one in charge – of the adults as well as the children. A mother would always ask Nanny first if it was convenient for her to take her own children out and even then Nanny would usually go with them._

Naturally I couldn't see the Bransons allowing that. Betaed by babageneush.

**Permission**

* * *

"I don't see why I have to ask permission to visit my own daughter!"

Lord Grantham glared at him across the dinner table. "You're allowed to visit the nursery but you took her out to Ripon for the whole day without informing her nanny."

"I did tell her!"

"As you're leaving is _not_ enough warning."

"She should be glad she got that," Tom shot back. "I don't have to give her any warning, I don't want her coming with us and I don't want my daughter raised by a stranger."

"Sybil-"

"Oh honestly, Papa. I agree completely with Tom."

It was a surprise the Earl thought he'd get support from her in this matter. Nanny had no doubt had her share of complaints about Sybil too. The mother who stole Saoirse from the nursery simply to sit with her and let her play on the floor beside her desk while she studied.

"Not the way he's shouting at dinner-" Sybil continued, giving her husband a pointed look which he ignored "- but Saoirse is our daughter, not yours, and we'll raise her as we see fit."

"You're living in my house-"

"Only until Sybil graduates," Tom snapped. "But that's irrelevant. We could live here our entire lives and it still wouldn't make her yours," he informed him bluntly. "Not that we will."

He caught his wife's eye across the table and the decision was made.

They were leaving this place.


	10. Chapter 10

Written in response to the prompt 'uniform of oppression' from yankeecountess on tumblr. Thanks to babageneush for the beta.

**Uniform**

* * *

He managed the first dinner, rolling his eyes at the smug smiles and taking comfort in grateful (and appreciative) glances from his wife across the table.

He endured _most_ of the second dinner. Even with the Dowager's unnecessary comments on how wonderful it was that they'd finally 'tamed' him by forcing him into the white tie.

By the time the women had gone through though, the wine had made its way to his head and the disgustingly satisfied, self-congratulatory tone of the Earl was almost too much to bear.

"I'm just so very glad you've finally seen sense on the whole matter."

And that was it.

"You know, it wasn't really my idea," Tom told him, taking another drink. "Sybil was the one who convinced me."

"Did she? I ought to thank her."

"Yes… You see, without a valet, I find it quite complicated getting out of it alone and she enjoys helping me with that so _very_ much."

Tom smiled at Robert's flabbergasted expression and Matthew's mix of stunned amusement, and raised his glass to his father-in-law.

"I mean, really, I ought to be thanking you."


	11. Chapter 11

Written for the prompt 'cuddle' on tumblr. Thanks to babageneush for the beta.

**Tradition**

* * *

She knew what he was expecting. Every time they had visited Downton since they had left the first night had been the same. Even now, after so many trips back, they both still had a thrill from making love in her old bed. Surrounded by the opulent room that represented so much of why they should never have been and defying it in the simplest and most powerful way they could.

But tonight, Sybil could barely manage to keep her head up as she got changed. They had arrived early that morning which had seemed like a fine idea when they'd planned it but in reality hadn't worked so well when Sybil was forced to stay late at work the night before, leaving Tom to sacrifice his sleep to pack alone.

Their daughter, Saoirse, had just turned four and was usually a reasonably manageable child but she loved visiting her family at Downton and had spent the day running all over the estate (or so it felt like). Her poor parents only just managing to keep up as she excitedly re-antiquated herself with everything she had missed while home in Dublin.

The door to the bathroom opened and Tom came through, tossing his dressing gown over a chair and getting into bed.

"I'm not up for anything tonight, I'm afraid," Sybil sighed, deciding to let him down sooner rather than later. "I'm exhausted."

"Oh thank God," Tom gasped, flopping onto the bed. "Me too."

The unexpectedness of his response drew a laugh from her and he sat himself up against his pillows, smiling at her in the mirror.

Sybil shook her head. "I really don't know how she has so much energy, she's four, where does she keep it all?"

Tom laughed. "I'm almost thinking leaving her with George and his nanny for a day might not be such a bad idea."

Sybil yawned as she took off her dressing gown. "After today I almost think putting up with Granny's 'I told you so's might be worth it. And I'm rather glad we agree, I thought I was just getting old."

"If you're old what am I?" Tom asked with a laugh, opening his arms as she climbed into bed.

"My darling husband," Sybil replied without hesitation, slipping gratefully into his embrace. She laid her head on his chest and sighed, letting herself sink into his arms. "I'm glad you're not too disappointed."

"Hmm, we did have somewhat of a tradition going."

"Well, that hardly bothers me," Sybil laughed softly, her eyes suddenly very heavy. "If anyone can break with a tradition, it's us."

"Truer words were never spoken Mrs. Branson."

Sybil smiled, feeling his soft kiss on her head as his hands stroked her back comfortingly, but before she had the chance to say anything more she had drifted to sleep, safely curled into her husband's chest. Tom joined her moments later.


End file.
